Savings groups have been a useful tool for integrating rural populations into the financial sector. As I’ve shared in the past, the MIF has supported several savings group projects in different countries of the region - most recently in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia - that incorporate income-generating activities and financial inclusion components. However, their connection to the formal banking sector still needs further exploration.

The recent publication of the memoires from the savings colloquium organized by the ProSavings Program in November 2014 led me to reflect on several issues. For instance, even though inclusive savings experiences have been implemented in several different parts of the region, we find that people who live in remote locations continue to face prohibitive costs in traveling to points of service to make deposits and thus achieve their savings goals. While the ProSavings Program has contributed toward motivating conditional transfer beneficiaries to save in a formal way - something this segment rarely did before- I wonder: what is the solution for those people who still find formal savings extremely costly?

According to the book Better Pensions, Better Jobs, published in 2013 by the IDB, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) 130 million workers are not saving towards their pensions. It also states that only 4 out of 10 workers currently contribute to a pension system. This data points to how critical this issue currently is amongst the most vulnerable segments. This is where lessons learned on inclusive savings play a relevant role and provide the basis for designing strategies that incorporate products focused on retirement savings.